DVD Review: The Spiderwick Chronicles – The Two-Disc Field Guide Edition

June 18, 2008

Writers: Karey Kirkpatrick, David Berenbaum, John Sayles, Tony DiTerlizzi, Holly Black
Director: Mark Waters
Cast: Freddie Highmore, Sarah Bolger, Nick Nolte, Mary-Louise Parker, Joan Plowright, David Strathairnk, Seth Rogen, Jordy Benattar, Martin Short, Andrew McCarthy
Rating: PG
Studio: Paramount – Nickelodeon
Release Date: June 24, 2008

I’d been looking forward to seeing The Spiderwick Chronicles since I saw the first advertisements for the movie several months ago. I’d never even heard of the books, but seeing as I have a 13 year old son, I’ve become immersed in the media that is the friendliest to the pre-teen and teen crowd. I have to admit some of the TV shows and movies are good and some of them are trash I don’t like him watching, due to the level of stupidity they have within them. I don’t want crappy television shows or movies sucking neurons out of his brain or anything.

With my girlfriend, son and a nice bowl of popcorn, we sat down in front of the living room television set to enjoy The Spiderwick Chronicles. We did enjoy it. For the most part, the story flowed together nicely. While I felt there could have been a little more to the battle at the end, everything came together nicely. Of course, now that I’ve researched the books and compared them to the movie, I must say book purists might not like the subtle changes and lack of inclusion of most of the fourth book in the series. Still, some things needed to be cut and others needed to be tweaked to keep the movie short enough to be engaging, but long enough to tell the story completely. This is where I believe The Spiderwick Chronicles succeeded.

Release Information:
The Spiderwick Chronicles was heavily advertised thanks to Paramount, Nickelodeon and the PR companies that represent them. I knew I’d be receiving a copy of this long before I did. I don’t get out to the movies much and prefer to watch them in the privacy of my home, so receiving the movie was fine by me. I would have been purchasing the DVD anyway.

The Spiderwick Chronicles had its Hollywood film premiere on January 31, 2008. The film was released nationwide in the U.S., Canada, the Philippines, and South Korea on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2008. The film grossed over $21 million in its opening weekend in the U.S. alone. From there, the film has received generally positive reviews from critics and an excellent reception by movie goers. Still, there is the occasional book purist who just can’t get over what changes were made from book to movie.

The Spiderwick Chronicles was produced by Nickelodeon Pictures and is set to be released on DVD next week (June 24, 2008). The DVD is being distributed by Nickelodeon and Paramount. The Spiderwick Chronicles is available on Amazon in a Widescreen Edition and a Fullscreen Edition, both for $18.99 USD, a Blu-Ray Edition for $27.95 USD and a two-disc special edition that is called The Spiderwick Chronicles – The Two-Disc Field Guide Edition for $23.99 USD. This review is specifically for The Spiderwick Chronicles – The Two-Disc Field Guide Edition.

The Spiderwick Chronicles Plot
The Spiderwick Chronicles contains a lot of actors I like. I’m a huge fan of Mary-Louise Parker and have been ever since her Fried Green Tomatoes days. I think she’s an exceptional actress with a versatility not often seen in Hollywood. As Helen Grace, the mother of the three children in The Spiderwick Chronicles, Parker plays a damaged, frazzled, somewhat defeated single mother. Sure, Parker has experience playing a single mother, but Helen is quite different from her performance as the drug dealing, suburban, single mother, Nancy Botwin on the hit television show, Weeds.

Young Freddie Highmore is one of the best child actors of his generation. I knew Freddie was good from his roles in Finding Neverland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and August Rush, but I do think The Spiderwick Chronicles is some of his best work. Freddie plays twins, Jared and Simon Grace. The two characters are polar opposites of one another and Freddie makes it clear these boys are two different kids. You can’t even really recognize the fact that Freddie is playing both of them. If I hadn’t known that it was him I would have assumed Freddie had a twin. Let’s just say, he put Lindsay Lohan’s performance in The Parent Trap to shame.

I wasn’t familiar with Sarah Bolgar prior to her role as Mallory Grace, the older sister of Simon and Jared. I probably saw her when she played on The Tudors, and I knew I recognized her face, but I can’t for sure remember if that show is why. Either way, she played her part quite well. She was the nagging, annoying sister where necessary and the protective, caring sister and daughter when needed. She also was pretty good with her fencing moves, something that made Mallory such an interesting character in the book series, from what I’ve heard about it.

It’s hard to argue with voice talent like Nick Nolte, Martin Short and Seth Rogan for the various magical characters. While I placed all their voices, I didn’t realize how I knew them excluding Nolte. That was, of course, because he made an appearance in person, as an old disfigured looking man, when he was trying to trick one of the twins. I knew it was him because he looked similar in appearance to that infamous mug shot he took that pretty much everyone has seen and remembers. It’s hard to argue with supporting actors like David Strathaim, Joan Plowright, and Andrew McCarthy. Overall, this film was incredibly well cast and that just made it all the better.

The story for The Spiderwick Chronicles begins with a sinister look into the private room of Arthur Spiderwick (David Strathaim) as he is frantically writing in his field guide. After the credits role, Helen Grace and her three children Mallory, Simon and Jared are moving to live in the Spiderwick Estate. The family is moving from the city (New York) because the recently divorced Helen has inherited the estate from her ailing Aunt Lucinda (Joan Plowright). She also has a job lined up in the nearby town.

The calm, somewhat nerdy Simon quietly accepts the move, Mallory is more than willing to do anything to help their mother, who is obviously suffering, but Jared hates the idea of living with his mother. He rebels against everything she says and does, preferring to have his dad, Richard (Andrew McCarthy) pick him up and take Jared to live with him. Unfortunately, that’s just not feasible.

After a few mishaps that make Helen and Mallory mad at Jared, he soon discovers a secret room when he pulls himself up a dumbwaiter Mallory has uncovered behind a wall. In the dumbwaiter, he finds a key. In the secret room is a trunk (the key goes in the trunk) and in the trunk is a book with a warning message. The message says the book must never be opened or basically the person who opens it will be dead. Ignoring the warning, Jared opens to book only to discover it’s a field guide that was written by his great-great-uncle, Arthur Spiderwick. Prior to opening it, Jared had received a sinister message written in the dust on the desk in the hidden room. The message was a warning much like the one on the book cover.

With Jared hidden in a trunk in his room, reading the field guide, the whole house is awoken by the screams of Mallory. Someone has tied her hair in knots to the bedpost and of course, she blames Jared.
While Jared proclaims he was in the trunk the whole time, Simon, who was sleeping, can only confirm that he saw Jared get out of the trunk, though it is pretty clear they all believe he did it. Jared, on the other hand, believes it might have been a brownie, which turns into a boggart.

Soon after, Jared meets the brownie, Thimbletack (Martin Short). He learns that Thimbletack was supposed to be protecting the book and he is quite upset Jared has opened it. This causes Thimbletack to change back and forth from brownie to boggart. Asa result of Jared reading the book, the home is now surrounded by beings Jared cannot see until he puts on a special eyeglass Thimbletack gives him. The house, outside of this toadstool circle around the estate is surrounded by goblins. It is the purpose of them to obtain the book for an evil ogre named Mulgarath (Nick Nolte), who wishes to use it to rule the world and destroy everything as it is currently known.

When Simon ventures outside the protective toadstool circle, the goblins, thinking he is Jared, kidnap him. Jared goes to save him, and on the way, he meets and rescues a hobgoblin named Hogsqueal (Seth Rogan). Hogsqueal spits on Jared’s eyes, allowing him to easily see all of the magical creatures around him. Jared is able to free Simon, for now, but they must make it home safely and prevent the goblins from snatching Mallory, who doesn’t believe the boys’ story about the mythical creatures, so she freely ventures outside the circle.

Ultimately, this is a story about adventure, family, loyalty and the ever present theme of good versus evil. The children have to find out how to make themselves safe, why the book is so important and whether their Aunt Lucinda, who has been institutionalized since she told authorities her dad was kidnapped by faeries, as a child, can help them. The story is great, the plot is woven neatly together, the storylines all make sense and everyone in the family, from 13 to 30, enjoyed it!

Storyline/Plot:
Replayability:
Acting:
Directing:

Audio/Visual:
The stunning anamorphic widescreen, 2.35:1 transfer for The Spiderwick Chronicles was absolutely perfect. I can’t tell you if there were visual errors or not, because honestly, I couldn’t find any. The colors were vibrant, the ability to have Freddie Highmore on screen in double was flawless, and the contrast was sharp. There really isn’t anything to complain about, because for a standard DVD, this is as good as it gets! This film needed to be visually pleasing, due to the amount of special features that had to be used. This film passes the visual test with flying colors.

The audio for The Spiderwick Chronicles is nearly as good as the video. Music, sound effects and dialogue came through perfectly. I didn’t have to toggle with my volume. I turned it to the normal volume level that is typical for my TV and I didn’t have to turn it up or down. It sounded great! There are three Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks in English, Spanish and French. The English track is superb. Closed Captioning is available in all three languages for the hearing impaired. Subtitles are also available in English, French and Spanish.

Visual:
Audio:

Bonus Features:
The Spiderwick Chronicles – The Two-Disc Field Guide Edition is teeming with bonus features. I’ve decided to list them by the discs they are on and give a brief description of each of the bonuses that are included.

DISC ONE

“Spiderwick: It’s All True!” – A featurette that offers seven minutes of an anamorphic widescreen interview/intro with director, Mark Waters. As the featurette implies Waters explains how all of the creatures in The Spiderwick Chronicles are actually real and the story is 100% true.

“It’s a Spiderwick World” – The original author and illustrator of The Spiderwick Chronicles book series, Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi, explain how they came up with the idea for the books in this anamorphic widescreen featurette. They mention there are three children the book is based upon, though you never know if they’re really telling the truth. The director and producer discuss their approach when transferring the story from book to film. This featurette is not quite nine minutes in length.

“Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide” – For those who enjoyed the movie, this interactive bonus allows for the reading of individual pages that are in Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide.

“Field Guide in Movie Mode” – As you watch the film an icon (red book) will appear as a popup, allowing for interactivity and the ability to read more information during certain scenes of the movie.

DISC TWO

“Spiderwick: Meet the Clan” – This is a self-explanatory bonus featurette. This featurette is fourteen minutes and it is in anamorphic widescreen. This featurette offers an introduction and interview with the actors that play the main characters in The Spiderwick Chronicles. The voice actors are shown in the recording studio and the live actors are shown on the set.

“Making Spiderwick” – This is your run of the mill “making of” featurette. This is just over twenty minutes in length. The anamorphic widescreen feature looks at the special effects, the music, the cinematography and the production design amongst other things.

“The Magic of Spiderwick” – There are many special effects used in The Spiderwick Chronicles. This is almost fifteen minutes of anamorphic widescreen footage. It looks specifically at Tippett Studio and Industrial Light & Magic, both of which were used to create all the CGI and other special effects.

Deleted Scenes – There are four in total. You can watch them separately or choose to view all. This is also in anamorphic widescreen.

Television Promotion Spots – There are nine in total. They aired on Nickelodeon to promote the movie. This is presented in 4:3 video.

Theatrical Trailers – There are two trailers presented in anamorphic widescreen.

“A Final Word of Advice” – This is the final feature where the director, Mark Waters bids you adieu.

Bonus Features:

Bottom Line:
The Spiderwick Chronicles was my favorite, family friendly movie I’ve seen so far this year. The acting was superb, the story was engaging, the characters were well developed and there was very little I could complain about. No matter your age, you should pick up a copy of The Spiderwick Chronicles. I recommend this Two-Disc Field Guide Edition because I truly enjoyed the bonus features, but as long as you get the movie, you’ll surely enjoy it, and whatever version you get is fine by me.

Overall Rating:

Technorati Tags: The Spiderwick Chronicles, Two Disc Special Edition, Freddie Highmore, Sarah Bolgar, Mary-Louise Parker, Nick Nolte, Martin Short, Seth Rogan, Paramount, DVD Review

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